The Hindu Business Line : Swelling ranks

According to the latest World Bank report, the actual number of poor people in India has increased by 39.8 millions in absolute numbers during 1981-2005.

K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

Mahatma Gandhi once said that the real India lives in its villages.

Against the background of this statement, the latest report published by the World Bank on poverty in India must come as a shocking revelation not just to the planners but to the country as a whole.

Perhaps, the most painful and disappointing verdict is on the UPA government, which has already completed more than four years in office and which started to govern the country with what was popularly known as the “Common Minimum Programme” (CMP).

The most striking, and, at the same time the most disappointing, observation is that the actual number of poor people in India has increased by 39.8 millions in absolute numbers during 15 years (1981-2005) coinciding with the reform period and the increase is 9.6 per cent in relative terms, when we raise the level of income from $ 1.0 per day to $1.25 per day.

In reality, 42.2 per cent or four out of 10 Indians were poor in India in 2005 at an income of about Rs 50 per day.

This is the most damaging observation on the quality of Indian governance.

What can Rs 50 (equivalent to $1.25) a day fetch in India, when a kg of atta and rice costs upwards of Rs 20, a kg of sugar Rs 20, a kg of dal Rs 45 and the cheapest cooking oil (palm oil) Rs 50 a litre? The poor, indeed, have been hit the hardest.

This is the legacy of the UPA government, which set out on a rather repackaged “garibi hatao” (of the late Indira Gandhi days) theme bandied around as the CMP slogan. In fact, poverty in India at 455.8 million in 2005 was strikingly higher than that in sub-Saharan Africa where it was only 384.2 millions in the same year.

‘Pathetic governance’

Simply put, the World Bank data is not the best endorsement of the UPA government, which has been boasting about “inclusive growth” and 9 per cent gross domestic product (GDP).

The reality is that the Indian economy is in a shameful state of affairs. And the lot of the poor is the most pitiable compared to anywhere else in the world.

And the paradox is that the country’s natural resources have been and continue to be plundered by a chosen few, while millions of poor go without a proper meal.

Perhaps, the methodology of calculating the poor at a daily income of $1.25 can be questioned.

But, if we take into account the escalation in cost of living, triggered by the inflation rate at more than 12 per cent, the report becomes all the more important. When the World Bank says that four out of ten Indians live below the poverty line, one could quarrel with the methodology used, but, there is no disputing the cause — sheer pathetic governance.

Dismal show on projects

Look at some of the stark facts staring in one’s face: According to the September 30, 2007 status report of the Ministry of Programme Implementation, out of 897 projects, 276 suffered cost over-runs with an anticipated cost of Rs 1,42,227 crore as against the original estimate of Rs 95,913 crore, which is a 48 per cent increase!

This simply shows that for about 30 per cent of the projects formulated, the accountability factor is of a very low order. Programmes and projects are allowed to continue from one Plan to another without an independent and in-depth evaluation.

In all this futile and grossly wasteful exercise, it is the really poor who suffer most because they are the voiceless.

A new Asian Development Bank report on estimating the number of poor says that poverty reduction can differ by at least 7 per cent depending on the policies implemented. Simply put, pro-poor policies could lift 126 million Indians out of poverty, while pro-rich policies only 28 millions by 2020.

(The author is an agricultural scientist. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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